


A Tonic for Your Ails

by Arenne



Series: Tales from the Wild [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action, Battle wounds, Brotherhood, Chef!Wild, Fairies, Gen, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Minor Action, Minor Injuries, Recipe for Disaster, Shenanigans, Twilight aged another five years, Wild is Crazy, Wild's Leftover Casserole, and everyone knows it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22919872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arenne/pseuds/Arenne
Summary: A run in with moblins leaves some of the Heroes with injuries. Thankfully, Wild has a recipe for that.
Series: Tales from the Wild [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629130
Comments: 37
Kudos: 762





	A Tonic for Your Ails

**Author's Note:**

> Linked Universe belongs to jojo56830 on Tumblr.
> 
> Though this story is part of a series, it can be read completely stand-alone.

Splitting up had been a mistake, Twilight thought grimly. If the Heroes had known they would be attacked soon after doing so, they would most certainly have stuck together. Well, that was what hindsight was for.

They were in an unfamiliar land, following a worn and dusty road through a dense forest. When the path had forked abruptly, they had decided, after a bit of discussion, to split up into two groups and follow each trail for a few hours. They would regroup back at the fork just before nightfall to make camp and decide which way to go all together.

Time, Warriors, Sky, and Four had taken the left path while Twilight led Hyrule, Legend, Wind, and Wild down the right. At the time, Twilight had felt that he had gotten the short end of the stick with his group. It wasn’t that he didn’t love and care for each and every one of his companions, but Wild and Hyrule were known to wander off without hesitation, Wind was the youngest and could be emotionally volatile, and Legend had a bad habit of escalating situations with his ill-chosen words. Twilight was the only adult in the group, and he felt the burden of that responsibility rest heavily upon his shoulders.

For a few hours, all had been well. They followed the road, ignoring Wild’s suggestions that they blaze a new trail. It had been almost boring if one tuned out the small squabbles between Wind and Legend. But after about three hours of uninterrupted hiking, they had been ambushed.

A dozen moblins had spilled onto the road from the forest on either side. There had been no warning; not even Twilight had sensed them coming. Hyrule had glimpsed them by chance as they barreled through the trees, and his strangled cry saved the Heroes from being completely unprepared. They had just enough time to draw their weapons before the monsters were upon them. Three of the moblins had immediately set their sights on Twilight, and the ranch hand found himself forced to devote his entire focus on his opponents. He had been isolated from the others, and he could only pray that they were able to handle the rest of the enemies on their own.

The moblins were vicious and much more agile than their large frames implied. They were strong too, and it was all Twilight could do to keep himself alive. The three attacking him were coordinating their strikes in a way no monsters of low intelligence had a right to do. It was unusual and disconcerting, just one more strange, nonsensical occurrence the Heroes found themselves dealing with in recent days.

Twilight waited for an opening. He kept on the defensive, watching his opponents carefully and striking whenever he saw an opportunity. He was whittling them down, though they’d gotten a few glancing blows on him as well. Finally, he caught a break. One moblin, growing impatient, threw all its strength into swinging its club and ridiculously overextended itself. Twilight easily stepped aside to avoid the blow and slashed upwards. His sword bit deeply into the moblins side and severed its arm just below the shoulder. The moblin gave a single bellow of agony as it was knocked to the ground, and then it moved no more.

Now only facing two monsters, Twilight had a bit of breathing room. He remembered his days with Midna, as bittersweet as they were, when the two of them would fight the shadow beasts. They’d pick off one before finishing the other two in one fell swoop. As always when he thought of Midna, he felt a sorrowful pang deep within his heart, but he quickly shoved the feeling aside. He couldn’t afford to be distracted right now.

The moblins were enraged that he had managed to kill their comrade. They roared and renewed their attacks against him with increased viciousness. This was actually to Twilight’s advantage though, as their movements became much sloppier. Almost immediately, Twilight spotted an opening in the guard of one moblin and quickly delivered a thrusting stab through its belly. The force from the blow pushed the moblin off his sword and the monster fell onto its back. It writhed weakly on the ground, still alive, so Twilight moved in for a finishing blow to its heart, mentally thanking his mentor for teaching him the skill. He sprang away as the moblin let out a final death cry.

Down to one. Twilight chanced a glance around, hoping to see how the others were faring. He saw at least six moblin bodies littering the ground. Hyrule and Wind were tag-teaming one of the few moblins still alive, while Legend was busy taking care of another. Wild was…

Where was Wild?

Twilight’s moment of inattention cost him. A mighty roar resounded behind him. Twilight whirled around, but the final moblin had capitalized on Twilight's momentary distraction and was already bringing its sword down. There was no time. Twilight could only hope he could raise his shield up enough to prevent a mortal blow from landing.

The moblin’s sword cut through the air, moving swiftly towards Twilight’s face, yet when the weapon was only a foot away from Twilight, an arrow clanged against it with just enough force to divert the path of the blade. The sword whistled past Twilight's right ear, missing him by mere inches, and hit the dirt beside Twilight’s foot, throwing clods of grassy earth into the air. Twilight took the opportunity to gain some space and threw himself to the side. He rolled over his shoulder and sprang to his feet.

His raised his sword, prepared to finish off the beast, but another figure darted past him in a familiar blur of black and blue. Twilight watched as the Hero of the Wild leapt up into the air with a battle cry, a stolen moblin club raised high above his head, and brought the weapon down upon the monster’s head. The club broke from the force, filling the air with the sound of splintering wood that couldn’t quite drown out the sound of fracturing bone. The beast dropped to the ground, its skull gruesomely caved in, and Wild tossed away the broken off club handle with a final glare at the monster.

He turned to Twilight, concern etched into his features. “Are you alright?”

Twilight sighed, taking the time to clean his sword on the grass before sheathing it. His heart was still beating rapidly from his near miss, but he managed to speak calmly. “Yeah. Though,” he eyed Wild’s right arm, “I think I should be the one asking that.”

Wild glanced down to the nasty cut that was bleeding sluggishly through the hole in his tunic. He rolled his eyes. “Just a graze. It’s not like you’re in any better shape!”

“If it’s just a graze, why is it still bleeding?” Twilight asked, pretending he hadn’t heard the second part. Though, Wild wasn’t wrong. Twilight had received several cuts and bruises during his fight that were starting to throb painfully as his adrenaline ebbed away.

Wild muttered something under his breath that sounded an awful lot like, _“bad as Zelda_.” Twilight briefly considered giving Wild a hard time for the comment, but seeing as Wild had just saved Twilight’s skin, he decided to let it go. For now.

Twilight turned to survey the scene of their battle. All the moblins had been taken down, and it seemed that no one had received any life-threatening injuries. No one had escaped completely unscathed, though. Hyrule was limping quite badly, Legend’s bare legs sported several scrapes, and Wind’s left arm had a cut that almost perfectly mirrored Wild’s.

All in all, it could have been worse, but it could have been so much better too.

Twilight sighed as the five of them gathered together. He didn’t like the idea of staying where they were, but they needed to bandage their wounds and heal themselves as best they could before they made the return journey back to their companions. “Let’s take care of our injuries before we regroup with the others. How many potions do we have?”

“None,” Legend said as he watched Hyrule dig through his pack on the ground. “We had one left, but the others took it.” That’s right. They had been low on supplies, and each group had taken one of their remaining healing implements.

“We have a fairy though,” Wind piped up.

Hyrule nodded and produced the bottled fairy from his back. “Just one though,” he said morosely.

They all stared at the lone fairy fluttering around in the jar for a minute. Finally, Twilight sighed.

“You should use the fairy then,” he said to Hyrule. “We won’t be able to make good time if you’re limping that badly.”

Hyrule looked positively horrified and shook his head vehemently. “No, no! I-I shouldn’t be the only one to be healed!”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Legend snapped. His patience was thin on a good day, and today certainly could not be classified as such. “You clearly can’t walk on that leg. Just use the stupid fairy.”

“But everyone’s hurt!”

Legend opened his mouth to retort, but Twilight did _not_ feel like dealing with an argument.

“Enough!” Twilight pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know it’s not the best situation, but we don’t have a lot of choice. We can’t stay here for long.”

Hyrule’s expression crumpled in dismay, and Twilight felt bad that it had come to this. Wind squatted down and gave Hyrule a hug where he sat despondently on the ground.

“Why don’t we just make a fairy tonic? Then everyone could be healed.”

All eyes turned towards Wild.

“What’s a fairy tonic?” Wind asked with wide eyes.

“It’s like a… a red potion, I guess…? I don’t know, it’s a thing.” Wild shrugged. “It shouldn’t take long to make. I think I have enough ingredients.”

Twilight hesitated. He didn’t always trust the things that Wild came up with. The teen had some interesting ideas about what constituted “normal”, and anything that was exclusive to Wild’s land was the definition of “abnormal.” Twilight had already seen too many insane things, and each one never failed to give him a headache. Unfortunate, he didn’t have a better solution, so he nodded resignedly. “Okay. Go ahead and make it.”

Wild grinned and pulled out his Sheikah Slate. After a few taps and several minutes, he had a roaring fire going with a pot heating up atop it. As he waited for the temperature to rise, he turned to Wind. “Can you go see if there are any herbs nearby?”

“Sure!” Happy with his task, Wind darted away.

Twilight eyed Wild, dread starting to pool in his stomach. “What exactly goes into a fairy tonic?”

Wild shrugged. “Eh, this and that.”

Well that did nothing to ease Twilight's nerves. In fact, it did the opposite.

Wild then proceeded to pull out “this and that”. Twilight watched in growing horror as Wild pulled out several apples, two whole fish, bokoblin teeth, a lizard, a cricket, a strange spiny fruit, and _rocks_ and then threw it all into the pot.

“You didn’t even clean those fish!” Legend cried, aghast.

Hyrule was staring at the pot with wide eyes. “He-he used teeth.”

“And rocks,” Twilight murmured. He was worried for his protégé’s mental health at this point.

“WILD!” Wind came hurdling back into their midst. Panting, he handed Wild what looked like clumps of grass. Twilight could see bits of dirt still clinging to the roots in several places. “I don’t really know what this is, but will it work?”

“Perfect,” Wild said, taking the grass from Wind’s hands and throwing it into the pot, dirt clumps and all.

Wind gave him a startled look and quickly glanced around at the others as though hoping for an explanation. None of them had any words to offer the boy though. They were barely managing to cope with their own mounting horror. And Wind hadn’t even seen what went in the pot before.

“Um…” Wind began uncertainly, peering into the pot full of dark gray sludge. “Is… is that a lizard?”

“There’s a cricket too,” Legend whispered.

“And teeth,” Hyrule said in the same soft voice.

Wind looked as horrified as Twilight felt.

“Right, I think I have enough ingredients.” Wild stood from his crouch, dusting his hands off on his trousers before reaching out a hand towards Hyrule. “Now the fairy.”

Hyrule still clutched the little jar in his white-knuckled hands. Wordlessly, he handed it over to Wild. Wild uncorked the bottle, scooped out the fairy, and threw it in the pot.

There was a moment of stunned silence before what they all had seen became too much to handle, and everyone exploded.

“ _WILD!_ What are you doing?!”

“Are you crazy?!”

“You killed the fairy!”

Hyrule moaned and clutched his head. “I should have just used the fairy. Why didn’t I use the fairy? _What have I done?!”_

Wild’s eyes went wide as he witnessed his friends looming over him in anger (and Hyrule’s mental breakdown on the ground). He held up his hands and took a step away from them, eyes darting to each one of them like a cornered rabbit. He swallowed nervously. “It-it’s fine guys. Look.”

He gestured to the pot, and when Twilight looked, he saw the pot of sludge glowing pink. As if drawn by their gaze, the fairy burst from the mixture, circled around the pot a few times and flew off. Numbly, Twilight watched it fly away.

_What just happened?_

Wild used the distraction to give the pink concoction a stir with his ladle before quickly dishing it out into several cups he had prepared earlier. Twilight took his hesitantly when it was offered. The tonic was a light, clear pink and completely smooth. It had a nice, sweet aroma to it.

But Twilight knew what had gone into it.

Once everyone had a cup, Wild drank from his own. Within seconds of downing the tonic, the cut on his arm started closing, and after a minute, what could be seen beneath the tear in his tunic was completely healed. Wild grinned, twisting his arm around to see it better. Bolstered by his success, he faced the others. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Twilight looked from Wild’s eager face to his cup and back again. He sighed. There was no way he could say no to that expression, so he might as well just accept his fate. Twilight downed his cupful in one swallow. He had been expecting it to taste like a red potion, bitter and tangy, but the tonic was sweet and flowery like tea. He could also feel the effects immediately. His aches were fading, and when he looked down at himself, several of his more minor cuts had already closed. He looked up at Wild only to see a self-satisfied smile.

Once Twilight had drunk his, the others had no excuse. Legend shrugged and downed his much the same way that Twilight had while Wind took a small test sip before swallowing the rest. Hyrule stared at his cup. “Teeth,” he whispered, but then he clenched his jaw, looking determined, and drank it.

Everyone examined their wounds, looking pleasantly surprised. Hyrule got to his feet and put his weight experimentally on his injured leg, letting out a pleased laugh and jumping a few times when he found it healed.

“Wow, that worked really well!”

“And it tasted _WAY_ better than red potions! You should make it more often!” Wind said

Wild shrugged. He was dishing the remainder of the fairy tonic into an empty bottle. “I would, but we don’t often have fairies on us.”

“Was that really the recipe though?” Legend asked, narrowing his eyes at Wild. “It looked like you were just throwing stuff in.”

“The more ingredients you use, the more effective the tonic is,” Wild explained. “There’s not really a set recipe, so I just usually throw in whatever I have that’s been lying around for a while.”

Once again, stunned silence descended over the group, though this time, there was a strong undercurrent of anger running through it. Twilight stared at Wild, planning the many ways he was going to make the teen suffer for his little stunt, but Hyrule beat him to it. Hyrule stalked over to Wild and grabbed him by the collar, a snarl on his lips. Wild’s expression grew terrified.

“ _You mean you didn’t need to put teeth in it?!”_

“Um…” A trickle of sweat ran down Wild’s temple. “Technically no, but what else could I use teeth for? I’ve upgraded all my armor, and it’s not like teeth sell for very much.”

 _“You don’t need to use them at all! They’re teeth! Just throw them away!”_ Hyrule was now shaking Wild violently, a glint of madness in his eyes. As much as Twilight enjoyed the sight, he didn’t want bodily harm to come to his protégé. So, with a sigh, Twilight stepped in and broke them apart.

“Enough. What’s done is done. Let’s just get back to the others.”

There were several grumbles, and Hyrule continured to glare at Wild, but everyone moved to gather their things. Wild watched them all nervously, edging away if one of them got too close. When they were ready to go, Twilight met each of their eyes with his own hard stare. He was pleased when Wild flinched slightly under his gaze.

“No matter what, Time must never find out what happened here.”

They all thought about Time and the way fairies seemed to flock to him, and they thought about how he and Malon would put out sugar water for them in the hopes of reuniting with one special fairy.

They exchanged glances and nodded solemnly.

~*~

The others were already at the rendezvous point when they got back. They had also had a run in with monsters, but thankfully it had just been ten rather strong bokoblins. They had been ambushed not long after splitting up and hadn’t ventured further, opting to wait for the others.

Time was the only one injured, though he explained that was because he had forced Four and Warriors to split the last red potion between them. Time had a cut on his left cheek, but fortunately, it wasn’t too deep and had stopped bleeding long ago.

Upon hearing this, Wild, wearing a deadpan expression that Twilight did _not_ like the look of, walked right up to Time and handed him a bottle full of familiar pink liquid. “I made some healing tonic, you should have some.”

Time seemed slightly taken aback at the sudden offer but took the bottle with a small smile of gratitude. “Thank you.” He downed the liquid, looking pleasantly surprised when he finished. “That tasted better than I expected. And it seems to work well.” His fingers lifted to probe at the now healed flesh of his cheek. He patted Wild on the back and returned the bottle.

When Time looked over at Twilight, his brows drew together in a frown of confusion. “What’s wrong?”

Twilight realized he had been gaping at him mentor in horror, and a quick glance to the side revealed that Legend, Hyrule, and Wind were all doing the same.

Time had noticed the others as well and, looking quite bewildered, turned to Wild. “What are they doing?”

Wild looked at Twilight, still deadpan. “Don’t know. Maybe they drank something weird,” he said.

Twilight gritted his teeth.

He was going to kill that kid someday.

**Author's Note:**

> *After seeing his friend's reactions, Wild decided he will never reveal that he would sometimes use fairies to fuel the Master Cycle*
> 
> I made lots of fairy tonics prior to writing this. Every single item Wild used is a legitimate ingredient of fairy tonics. My personal favorite recipe: Fairy, bokoblin teeth, amber, and Hyrule herb.
> 
> If you enjoyed the story, be sure to subscribe to the series! The next one will be much more angst driven, but hopefully still enjoyable.
> 
> Thanks, and happy reading!


End file.
